Creator / Malgorzata Musierowicz

Edit Locked

Małgorzata Musierowicz (born Barańczak on 9 January 1945) is a very successful and prolific writer for both children and adolescent girls, as well as an artist - she designs her own covers.

Her best known series of novels is the Slice of LifeJeżycjada, so named from the place it's (largely) set - Jeżyce, a district of Poznań, where she used to live herself. The stories are idealistic and sweet, dealing with young girls friendships and first loves, filled with humour, optimism, romance and Latin quotations. Just the thing to curl up with in front of a fireplace - the Word of God is, she wrote the books to cheer people up.

All Girls Want Bad Boys: Both Janusz Pyziak and Baltona are certainly popular with the ladies. Unfortunately for Gabriela, in the first case Reality Ensues and their marriage doesn't work.

Annoying Younger Sibling: While not siblings but cousins, Aniela certainly sees Tomcio and Romcia this way in Kłamczucha. Also Ida for Gabriela, though Gabriela is really laid-back and mostly thinks that Ida is funny, and then Patrycja for Ida. And what Róża (and everybody else) had to put up with Laura in their childhood is indescribable. And then Ignacy Grzegorz is born and due to Parental Favoritism (and a bit of her own melodramatic tendencies) is Laura's turn to suffer.

Attention Whore: Ida and Aniela, particularily in their youth. Also Danka in Szósta klepka.

Bridezilla: In Noelka, Ida becomes rather exacting and tyrannizes her little sisters over the veil, the shoes, the food, the fact that heating stopped working... To be fair, stuff really is not 100% ideally perfect (heating won't work!), but Ida, dear? Take a deep breath, okay?

The Bully: The Lisiecki brothers, to a dog, until Ida smacks some sense into them. Unfortunately, later on they go back to bullying. This time smaller kids, including Konrad, for their money.

The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: To the point of being Anvilicious in Opium w Rosole, upon the revelation that "Genowefa Trombke" is really Aurelia, Ewa Jedwabińska's daughter - you know, the strict, strict teacher who's doing post-graduate course in psychology. This lady.

In Szósta Klepka: Cesia is the hardworking, academic and insecure sister, while her sister Julia is the glamorous, popular, lazy, self-absorbed bombshell.

The Pyziak sisters are an example in their teenage years, only Laura is considerably nastier than Julia and is the younger one. When Róża unexpectedly gains a trio of admirers and Laura is unable to steal their attention, she is pissed (Róża, despite her poor self-image, is actually very pretty. Laura is prettier, but these particular high school boys just weren't into thirteen year old Alpha Bitches.)

Mostly averted with the Borejko sisters. While the teenage Ida considers Gabriela an insensitive butch, and Gabriela finds Ida's Drama Queen persona hilarious, there is no real rivalry between them, and the younger sisters - Natalia and Patrycja - live in perfect harmony with each other. Only when they grow up and Patrycja and Ida get to interact as adults, the ugliness occurs. It's mostly just teasing, anyway.

Loads and Loads of Characters: Each book focuses on one girl and her romantic troubles, but they're all more or less friends, characters from previous books get B-plots in later ones, everyone has family and so on, and so the cast keeps growing.

Long Runner: Going on since 1977. The children of protagonists from the Eighties grow up to be the protagonists in the later books.

One Degree of Separation: Everyone can be reasonably assumed to know anyone else. And if they don't know someone, they will, sooner or later.

Only Known by Their Nickname: Florian. As a child, he was Bobcio, when grown up, he becomes Baltona, because he wore a sweatshirt with the name of this company on for some time. He dislikes this and asks his Love Interest to call him his real name (in a rather cute scene).

Parent with New Paramour: Both Gabriela and Grzegorz in Noelka. His daughter throws a fit at first, but then gets to know dad's new love and decides she's cool, her daughters are rather quick to accept mom's paramour.

Parental Neglect: Mrs. Lisiecka pays no attention to her own kids. Whoever made her a babysitter? Ewa Jedwabinska, that's who.

Passing Notes in Class: Whenever the action is set at school. Damazy and Bebe's correspondence forms part of the narrative in Brulion Bebe B..

Passionate Sports Girl: The young Gabriela is taller than most of her peers, looks boyish, considers fashion a waste of time, plays basketball and is prone to acting like Drill Sergeant Nasty when stressed. Both her younger sister Ida and her feminine cousin Joanna are horrified of her behavior. After several Femininity Failures in her introductory book, she turns a bit girlier, but never overly girly.

Precocious Crush: Lil' Genowefa Trombke on Maciek Ogorzałka in Opium w rosole. Source of much silliness and some plot. Source of Angst for her in Dziecko piątku (that takes place about ten years later), when she, not being in her right mind, kisses him - and her conscience eats her up, because he's Happily Married to Kreska at that point.

Put on a Bus: The cast is huge, so it happens every now and then, notably to Elka, her eventual husband Tomek, his sister Roma and Robert Rojek who later comes back as Bella's father in Córka Robrojka. Put to use regarding the little Bobcio from Szósta klepka who turns out to have grown into Patrycja's Love Interest, Baltona vel Florian.

Remember the New Guy: Kalamburka has, as an important character, Gizela Trak, who was previously mentioned once.

Romantic False Lead: Known to occur, notably this dentist guy Aniela was so hot for in Brulion Bebe B. and Matylda (for Maciej) in Opium w rosole.

Sibling Yin-Yang: Laura is wild, brash, manipulative and lazy. Also spitting image of their father. Róża, who takes after Gabriela's side of the family, is helpful to a fault, obedient, perfectly dutiful daughter.

Smart People Know Latin: Ignacy Borejko, a philologist, as well as his daughters (two of whom become philologists). Also, when Patrycja's boyfriend finishes a quotation for him, Ignacy is relieved to learn his daughter hasn't chosen a complete idiot.

Smitten Teenage Girl: Teen Ida has a tendency to be one for boys who at best, ignore her, and at worst, actively run away.

Starving Student: Kreska in her introductory book makes (and refashions, a lot) her own clothes and (when her grandfather is not around) barely can afford cheese.

The Stoic: Jerzy, the Love Interest and later husband of Cesia. Very smart and well-read in physics, very shy and quiet, covering it up with aloofness. The stoic philosophy is given quite a few favourableShout Outs.

Too Hungry to Be Polite: The Borejko girls, while still kids. Justified by largeness of the family and a meager income. Gabriela only goes to Joanna's party (where she meets several new friends) because Joanna is baking a very nice cake.

Trickster Twins: Piotr and Paweł, identical twins who play pranks on their mom Aniela - what did you expect from the offspring of two Cloudcoockoolanders?. Tomek and Roma, while not twins, were inseparable and also constantly in trouble as kids.

Two-Teacher School: Dmuchawiec and Pieróg are the two teachers we see most of in the school the majority of protagonists attend. Later books add Ewa Jedwabińska for a while. Jerzy Hajduk and Damazy Kordiałek (who have been Love Interestspreviously) become teachers after the old ones retire.

Wacky Parent, Serious Child: Mrs. Żak is a lovably scatterbrained artist. Her dutiful, insecure, serious daughter Cesia loves mom a lot, but still is quite embarrassed by her every so often.

Whole Episode Flashback: Kalamburka is the story of mrs. Borejko, the no-nonsense mom and granny we all know and love, told Back to Front from present day (New Year's Eve 2000) to her birth.

Write What You Know: Books set in Poznań (i.e. most of them) can be - and have been - used instead of guidebooks. When something changes in Real Life, it will change in the stories, too (like new shops).

Zany Scheme: Aniela's specialty. The overcompassing scheme of hers is becoming a professional actress which she does. Meanwhile, if she wants something, she'll go to the craziest lenghts to get it.

Tropes found in other books by Małgorzata Musierowicz

Bookworm: Munio in Małomówny i rodzina. Also his mom, but it's Munio's book devouring that gets them the treasure.

Community

Tropes HQ

TVTropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy